From what I remember you had said that your family is from the eastern part of Germany, so it's pretty typical for Germans raised under the communist regime of Eastern Germany to grow up without any religion. If I remember correctly religion was more or less "outlawed" by the communists in Germany, Russia and other eastern European countries, only to come back with a vengeance after the fall of communism.

From what I remember you had said that your family is from the eastern part of Germany, so it's pretty typical for Germans raised under the communist regime of Eastern Germany to grow up without any religion. If I remember correctly religion was more or less "outlawed" by the communists in Germany, Russia and other eastern European countries, only to come back with a vengeance after the fall of communism.

Totalitarianism vs. religion. A lose lose situation for the people.

Religion never came back to eastern germany. Eastern germany is the most atheist region in the entire world

People here see religion as laughable fairy tales and the religious people as brainwashed sick people under mass paranoia. Infact surveys were unable to find a single eastern german under 28 years old who believes in god.

Thats one of the few positive things that the GDR had. This posionous believes in an illusion was wiped out completly.

‘I am not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.’

'Then there are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source. They are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who - in their grudge against the traditional "opium for the people" - cannot bear the music of the spheres. The Wonder of nature does not becomes smaller because one cannot measure it by the standards of human moral and human aims.'

“A legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

Ah that poor Albert, he's been quoted extensively for all the wrong reasons...Can you please show where these quotes you posted above came from? Can you list the book, newspaper interview, magazine article or wherever dear uncle Albert specifically said these things?

On the other hand he has certainly said a lot and written extensively against religion and he's been pretty clear that he's not someone who you'd consider a "religious" or "spiritual" person in the way most people come to understand these terms in our day and age.

The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

-- Albert Einstein, in a letter responding to philosopher Eric Gutkind, who had sent him a copy of his book Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt; quoted from James Randerson, "Childish Superstition: Einstein's Letter Makes View of Religion Relatively Clear: Scientist's Reply to Sell for up to £8,000, and Stoke Debate over His Beliefs" The Guardian, (13 May 2008)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

-- Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955, quoted from James A Haught, "Breaking the Last Taboo" (1996)

I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it.

It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere.... Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

-- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

I've read/studied uncle Albert's body of work (including interviews etc.) extensively. If you read it too - instead of just quoting him out of context - it's going to be pretty clear to you too that uncle Albert was NOT a religious person by any means. Most scientists are not religious, very few are for their own personal reasons, but a huge huge percentage of them - are not religious. How could they be?

i will restrict myself to giving you details of my first quote, about him not being an atheist

max jammer - einstein and religion page 48 (at least in my copy)

i would further like to add

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

guess you would make einstein angry then

one last thing ... einstein said he doesnt believe in a personal god, yet some interpet this as "personal god", while others interpret this as "personal god"

no wonder the dude got angry

now i am no genius, mot even by a long shot, but in my simple mind i see this as "personal god".

do i agree with him? lets just say that this would be diving into the infinite world of relativity

and talking about einstein and children, this reminds me of a little story, once upon a time, back in the day, before i got shackled with the proverbial ball an chain ...

went once to a happy clapper type of convention/service, part because of curiosity, part as a matter of respect of this bird i was going out with at the time. i wont bother telling one about how pissed off i got with the preacher (only because i can remember the details, i only remember that i got angry with the crap he was coming up with misinterpreting what was said in the bible, as only happy clappers can only do)

anyway, after the service, i noticed a couple of self righteous, holler than though, really snobby individuals got together somewhere on the side somewhere, to do their thing they do best. why i remember that, is that while this was going on, i noticed one of their kids (i sorta kinda knew some of them) must have been around two years old or somewhere about there, she lifted her "sunday best" little dress and held it up in front of her eyes, and to my astonishment, started to half run half walk, obviously not being able to see where she was going, and before i could react, bam, face-planted into a wall. Wasnt hurt or anything - guess here hands acted as a sort of buffer that absorbed the impact, but strange thing was ...she half cried and half laughed at the whole thing

now imagine the allegories and interpretations that can be derived from this,.... from what could have been described as the lack of "divine" intervention (myself stopping her from getting hurt, for kids that age can only but see us as some form of gods) all the way to her discovery of the laws of physics

which only puts another alleged quote by einstein into perspective, and i dont remember exactly how it was stated, somewhere along the lines of the overly religious being almost as funny as the fanatic atheist, or something like that (or was it the other way round?)

In any case, the man himself has said many times in interviews and in his writings that he's not religious (and I provided several of this quotes - with actual quotations of where they came from) so there's no point continue beating a dead horse. I'll leave it at that.

Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

or to put it differently .... since you spoke about dead horses ....

(first you throw out the bait, the fish will bite, ...strike! ...and it will protest like a tasmanian devil on crack, thrashing about about above the water, ..... but the trick is patience, ... play with the "victim" and slowly real him in -> )

Unfortunately uncle Albert is not around anymore to put all those claims about his belief or non-belief to rest, but whatever the case what does it matter what Einstein, or anyone else for that matter, thinks about religion or non-religion? Would you become an atheist if Einstein would clearly state that he doesn't believe in god? (which he has as I showed you earlier...).

Since we're still talking about Einstein, to end the discussion about his conviction, here's again one of his quotes I posted earlier where he clearly talks about his religious beliefs in a straightforward way:

It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.

It seems pretty clear to me that he clearly says - in a no roundabout way - that he does not believe in god. Don't you think?

In any way, back to the original question (which had nothing to do with Einstein...): Did I decide that it's pointless to believe in a god, any god, because Einstein or Nietzsche or George Orwell or Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins told me so? To me it's just common sense. It just takes a little of bit of reading and understanding of physical sciences and then just reading one of the holy books - any of them, doesn't matter which one, they're all garbage. If this exercise doesn't automatically make you an atheist then you probably don't get science

Sure, some of them were valid but taken out of context. As usual you focus on the tree and miss the forest (in fact you usually beat the crap our of the tree for no real reason. Leave that poor tree alone... )

Jen's original question was what made me become non-religious.

My answer was "common sense and education" and your next post was "yes but Einstein...".

I could go on then and post hundreds of other quotes of "smart" people who say that they don't believe in god. So what? What's the point of this?

Jen asked why I chose to be non-religious. She didn't ask why Einstein or Bertrand Russell or Richard Dawkins chose to become non-religious. They obviously had their own reasons. I have mine.

What made you believe in god (in the Christian Orthodox god)? Let me guess...your parents?

If you were born into a muslim or a jewish or a hindu family wouldn't you naturally believe in something different than what you believe in today?

just for the record ... einstein never got militaristic about it. dawkins did, almost to the point that someone might think he was starting a new religion, and he was the almighty preacher who only he told the truth and the light, and those who follow him ...well .you know the rest. which makes him just a big a tosser as the rest of the religious fanatics, only he has a "religion" of his own

(and for the record, i both posses his book "The God Delusion" AND have read it, and my intelligence and education knows to recognize a new age "bible puncher" of a new form ..... and lets see if anybody recognizes "bible puncher" in its context that i state - when he sticks to science one can not find fault, NOT ONE, but when he sticks his nose into the matters of faith, irrelevant of religion, which has zero to do with science ... he is a total ... i wont even bother to say the words ..... apart from the concept they i deplore "fanatical fundamentalists"..... religious or not)